I Love Food

You know I love coffee, but do you know how much I love food? I'm obssessive about it actually, often planning what I'll eat for the day or the week. I'm not a foodie. I will eat a street hot dog. Give me those preservatives anyday.

This was a stellar weekend for food. It started on Friday evening with leftover beef braised in beer served over noodles. This was a recipe I got from a cookbook by Lidia Bastianich who owns a number of restaurants here in New York. My friend Doug loves her and says anything braised in anything is always delicious.

Saturday morning it was the classic heart clogger, bacon, eggs and buttered toast. The toast was whole grain. For lunch, I met Marty near the Armory where Mark was running and we had gyros in a small diner. The best gyros are had at Gyro II on 7th Avenue near 34th Street. Their sauce is the yummiest. We have a good gyro place two blocks away from our apartment, and also one in Jeffersonville, which I think is my second favorite because the pita's so good. Burp.

We stopped in Chinatown on the way home to buy shrimp. We got off the subway on the west end of the district and wended our way to the food area. Did you know you can buy anything and everything in Chinatown, legal and otherwise? We bought a ppund of shrimp for $4.80 and I turned it into a lovely p0asta dish with a pink sauce over linguine. We should have bought the larger shrimp, though as these cooked too fast and weren't as tender as we like them.

H & H bagels served as our breakfast on Sunday morning. We headed back up to the Armory to watch more racing. This is where my food cart ran off the rails. I had a bag of Cheetos and then a strawberry smoothie to banish the the chemical taste. When I returned to my apartment, I ate a slice of chocolate cake (store bought but good) washed down with a glass of milk. Marty had already left for Florida to visit his mom so I ate alone, a crisp quesidilla filled with refried beans, corn, tomato and cheddar cheese. Plenty of hot sauce, too.

How do I eat like this and stay thin? Metabolism, exercise and an obsessive tendency to weigh myself every day. If I go up a pound or two, I simply eat a little less. Go ahead, hate me.

Tattoo

No, I'm not thinking of getting a tattoo, but if I were to subject myself to that kind of torture, I'd go for a small coffee cup strategically placed so my mother-in-law can't see it.

I came to coffee rather late in life, at the ripe old age of 22. Until then, I drank only tea. When I started going to all-night diners and realized coffee refills were free, I tried my first cup. Until then, I associated the aroma of coffee with the stench of cigarettes. I drank my first cup black no sugar, which is how I drink it today.

The first thing I do every morning is brew a double shot of Costa Rican coffee in my Saefco machine. Mmmm. That first sip of black jolts me into awareness while relaxing me at the same time. I may have another cup or two during the day, but nothing tastes like that first cup.

I just finished a novel called The Coffee Diaries by Caroline Kellems. The story takes place in Guatemala and involves a woman trying to decide whether to sell the family coffee farms. Corruption, murder and drugs contrast with delicious food, the ties of family and friendship, and of course, cup after cup of Guatemalan coffee. I traveled to Guatemala in 1999 from my home in Costa Rica. Kellem's book mentions much of what I saw and experienced. Better, it confirmed what I remember about Central American climate, culture and ways of doing things that make sense but seem so foreign to someone from the US. To build a fence in poorer countries, they cut down trees to use as posts and then run barbed wire between them. My Nicaraguan gardener was good at this.

As I write my book about living in Costa Rica, it's good to have my memory jogged. I've forgotten so much.

Would you get a coffee cup tattoo? Where?

Heading Back to NYC

My idyll is nearly over. I return to NYC this afternoon where I will try to find a parking spot. Yes, I worry about parking even when it's 100 miles and hours away.

I did a lot of proofreading this morning. I'll be sending five sample stories to the agent. Some I haven't read in many years. They're funny, and needed little correction, although I sent them to my husband whose cruel eye will uncover my mistakes.

Keith is almost finished. I'm reading about the tensions with Mick. It's starting to sound like a broken record.

There's not much to bring back. Turbo, my laptop and clean laundry. I bought veal cutlets to make for dinner. In NYC, I can't afford them.

I'm Melting

Last night, it went down to 12 degrees. Today, it's 45. Even so, there's no way I can chip the ice away without the proper equipment. My other shovels are trapped in the garage, which can't be opened because it's blocked by snow. The plastic shovel just won't do.

Instead of shoveling, I went jogging. It was beautiful. I also picked up Turbo's prescription dog food. I sure hope he likes the stuff because it costs an arm and a leg.

Time for confession. I went to the library to return a book and left with three more. One doesn't count because it's a cookbook. But I picked up two more novels, one by Chang-rae Lee (I just finished Aloft, and it's beautifully written) entitled The Surrendered, and one by Caroline Kellems called The Coffee Diaries. I've already started The Coffee Diaries, which is about an American woman and the coffee farms she inherits from her father. I have about 100 pages to go in the Keith Richards book, and I also started Just Kids by Patti Smith. Please shoot me now.

I've written another story today about my Costa Rica days. I just got an email from an agent who read my proposal and wants to see an outline and some samples. This is the first positive response I've received for a book proposal. I've had essays published, but writing a book would be wonderful to do in J-Ville.

J-Ville On My Own

I'm in the woods for three days, just me and Turbo. The drive here was effortless. I stopped at the Post Office and the supermarket. It's snowed a lot more since we were here two weeks ago, and it's so cold, I had to trudge through crunch mounds to the side door, which had a pile of snow in front of it. I managed to wrench open the door and went inside to turn on the heat. After unloading the car, I went back in and turned on the water. The butler brought me lunch. I plan to take a nap in a little while.

Maybe I'll shovel snow later. I'm not going anywhere though. Tonight it's going down to 9 degrees. If it warms up tomorrow, I may go out and see what I can carve out. Or maybe not.

Men and Steak

What did Jamie Lee Curtis say to the waiter at Delmonico's Steakhouse? I'll take the Activia on the side.

Last night, we took our son Mark to this venerable restaurant for his birthday. He had requested a steak dinner, so we thought why not go to a top-notch locale that specializes in serving up rare chunks of meat? It did not disappoint.

Conveniently located near our apartment in the Bull and Bear District, Delmonico's is a bastion of old-world men's clubbiness replete with dark woods, low lighting and murals depicting the restaurant's storied past. I wondered where the cigar room was. Could it be over there in the "Board Room?" Among other things, Delmonico's is famous for the Delmonico cut of steak, Baked Alaska and Eggs Benedict. Only the strong survive this kind of feeding frenzy.

We all chose the 20 oz. Delmonico steak. It appeared on a plate with three fingerling potato slices and a half dozen carrots and haricots vert. Charred on the outside, rubbed with salt and something or other, this aged dowager (food is female) was cooked as we had requested (and as you get it anyhow), medium rare. Tender does not begin to describe the texture of the juicy slab that sits on your plate, daring you to eat the whole thing. The men at my table did just that. I ate about half and brought the rest home from which I will enjoy two more meals.

The Baked Alaska wasn't what I was expecting. I'd had it once before on a cruise to Alaska where they served it flambé and didn't drizzle banana sauce around the concoction. The Delmonico's version was too sweet and topped with a frightening glob of meringue.

I would recommend this restaurant to anyone who wants a true New York experience, has money to flambé and a doctor's note. Due to my prudence, I suffered no postprandial indigestion. I took a double dose of cholesterol medication and fell asleep resolving to make Eggs Benedict in the morning.

Friends, Food, Football

We're not big football fans but we always watch the Superbowl. We whip up some heart-attack food and chill some beers and try to act like the rest of America. Several years ago we watched the Giants tear the heart out of the Patriots. That was especially rewarding since we lived in Rhode Island and enjoyed seeing Boston teams (or in the case of the Pats, New England) lose. It made up for all the boorish behaviour we were subjected to regarding our love of the Yankees.

Mariel watched that game with us. It was the first time I'd imbibed beer with her, a rite of passage of sorts. We watched the game on the "big" TV downstairs on Mark's level. We ate junk. We commented on the commercials. Did the half-time show involve wardrobe misfunction that years? All I know is the Pats lost and we won, not that we really cared.

Last year, Marty watched the game in New York at a friend's house. He had just started working there. I must have watched it alone, or maybe with Harry. I honestly don't remember. This year, we decided to have a party and invited three friends to our apartment where we ate traditional food (wings, salsa and chips, hot dogs in pastry) and unexpected fare (steamed dumblings, salad and chicken shu mai, whatever that is. The best food of all was a key lime pie baked by our friend Roxi. Yum.

We all agreed the game was interesting, but the commercials were not unusually pithy. The half-time show was so-so. I think they shoud stick with acts that appeal to multiple generations like the Stones or Paul McCartney.

I was in bed by 10:30. Marty was washing dishes at 2 am, but I think he'd napped some before that.